Sig Christenson is a veteran military reporter who has made nine trips to the war zone. He writes regularly for Hearst about service members, veterans and heroes, among other topics. He is also the co-founder and former president of Military Reporters and Editors, founded in 2002.

No. Korea

04/12/2013

El PASO — An Army unit at Fort Bliss is poised to deploy a
sophisticated anti-missile system to Guam amid escalating tensions with
North Korea, which is preparing a possible launch of a medium-range
rocket capable of reaching the U.S. territory.

Capt. Cesar Torres,
commander of the battery that will defend the island, said Thursday his
crew trained in the Pacific against the very threat facing Guam and is
“absolutely” confident the system will work.

“This is a historic mission,” he said of the unit's deployment from
Fort Bliss, which until the last base-closure round had been a hub for
rocket research and air defense artillery training.

“We have ready, trained soldiers,” added Torres, 38, of Los Angeles.
“The equipment's ready and the experience that's within the battery is
more than capable of handling any situation that may arise.”

The troops and the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency
say the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, dubbed THAAD, is 10
for 10 in tests, including one test against the kind of rocket that
could reach Guam.

The crew and launch system are expected to fly to the Pacific soon, but the Army wouldn't say exactly when.

THAAD is part of the nation's growing ground-and sea-based
missile-defense network. Each battery, with six truck-mounted launchers,
can fire 48 interceptors. The Pentagon says it has been successfully
tested since 2005.

All three THAAD batteries in the Army's arsenal are at Fort Bliss.
Two of them have been fielded, fully staffed and are operational, Chief
Warrant Officer 4 John Fallin said. The Army plans to eventually field six batteries, with a cost per battery of about $850 million.

Bigger than the Patriot missiles that became famous in the 1991
Persian Gulf War, a THAAD interceptor has a range of about 100 miles and
is designed to take down a medium-range ballistic missile. The
truck-mounted THAAD launchers are mobile and can be quickly flown to hot
spots on C-5 and C-17 cargo planes.

“We're very, very proud of them,” said Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard,
commander of Fort Bliss, noting “it's the first real-world operation”
for a THAAD battery. “They will be a part of a protective shield for our
country in case of a missile attack from North Korea or wherever.”